Sunday, 15 August 2010

Honey cake

This cake contains no caster sugar, no brown sugar, no icing sugar, no sugar that you can think of.OK, it does contain a whole jar of honey but let’s accentuate the positive – no sugar!Using honey instead of sugar made the batter silky and smooth – so much that it shone.It also gave the baked cake a firmer texture, but at the same time crumbly.I know that sounds impossible but you’ll see what I mean when you make it.

A friend of mine (Engelbert’s mum) brought me back a jar of honey from a day trip to Ickworth House.She has what I believe would be termed a “high concept” blog (i.e. if I didn’t like her I would call it ‘mad’) based around her little crocodile called Engelbert.

To repay her kindness, Mr CC and I decided to try and make Engelbert cake decorations out of sugar paste. It was our first foray into such an art form but we were pleased with our creations (Mr CC’s is on the left, mine on the right):

The Suffolk honey was mild in flavour – not dissimilar to golden syrup.I often find honey too strong so loved this one.

Mr CC declared this one of the best cakes I’d ever made...high praise indeed!It’s a very simple recipe – the sort that it’s easy to pass by in a book without it registering, but was so delicious that it really should be tried.

Line a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.Beat together the butter and honey until you have a whipped, silky smooth blend. It will be much lighter than a traditional butter/sugar creaming.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, alternating with a third of the flour.

Add a dash of milk if the batter is too firm – you’re aiming for a dropping consistency i.e. if you take a spoonful of batter and lightly tap the spoon, the mixture drops off.

Stir in the sultanas.

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Bake for anywhere between 1 hour and 1 ½ hours. Check after an hour and if the edges are cooking too fast, lower the heat. Mine took 1 hour 15 minutes and I didn’t find any problem with the edges browning too quickly.

When a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out cleanly, remove the cake from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack to cool.

Take the tin out of the cake when it is cool enough to handle, and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

Sounds really lovely, especially with the sultanas added. I've recently made a cakes with a proportion of honey instead of all sugar, and it's amazing the way the flavour comes through. I bet this was delicious!

I LOVE 'tanas in cake, destructoBoy loves honey, I think we shall be making this cake to round off the Summer holidays. The really big upside? CK doesn't like 'tanas - hahahahahahaha all the more for us.

Thank you for this recipe! I was looking for sugar substitutes and this is perfect. I baked in muffin cases. The first time I used chopped apple in place of sultanas and the second time I substituted some flour for cocoa powder. You have given me the perfect balance of fat/flour/honey to play with. Thanks!

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About Me

So, the answer to the question you’re all asking: who am I? Well, a superhero never reveals their identity. I think it’s stated somewhere in the contract when you sign up for superhero-dom. Let’s just call me THE CAKED CRUSADER. By day (and night if I’m being honest) a mild-mannered City professional, but at weekends I become THE CAKED CRUSADER. Tirelessly fighting anti-cake propaganda and cake-related injustices – for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, ALWAYS NEEDS CAKE (we’ll just skip over the fact that it’s usually me).

Batman’s got the batmobile, batcave etc. Superman does just great what with being able to fly and being really strong. Spiderman’s got that web thing going on. But I have better than them. For I have a credit card and could get one of these:

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I am a 40-something Chartered Accountant working in the square mile.
My main hobbies at the moment are baking, and setting the world record for the number of cake tins owned by one person.
I spend far too much time watching Spongebob Squarepants and would love to try a Krabby Patty...I know, I know - it's not real.